


Train-nodding

by Charles_Rockafellor



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Parallel Universes, Twilight Zone - Freeform, Woolgathering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24385720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/pseuds/Charles_Rockafellor
Summary: White noise and darkness, a trick of the light.  Next thing you know, you're in the universe next door.𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆! ❤️
Kudos: 1
Collections: Icewall





	Train-nodding

BMT: always a question of the tunnel or the bridge.

The tunnel was interminable, but let your mind wander to your schedule, some chick across the car, whatever you were failing to read at the moment, maybe nodding off to thoughts of imagined monsters deep beneath the city, the ghostly reflections in the blackness of the window next to you...

The bridge could plummet you to your death from ten or twenty stories up – enough to reconsider your choices of the morning – but you probably stood a better chance of surviving that than the churning torrent of slurry were the tunnel to breathe its last. On the other hand, the view that you got for it was phenomenal. Back on that first hand though, you had to adjust your poor eyes to the seemingly-blinding light, only to be cast back into darkness a minute or two later...

Falling asleep on a train in New York is mostly safe, for a given value of “safe.” You might not get fucked with if you appear to be broke, dangerous, or insane.

My mind always wandered back then.

I could see the story form, possibly related to one similar that I had read when I was nine or ten, one of a Russian scientist on a train; he'd met a Twilight Zone clone after a flash of darkness beneath a mountain, and they'd talked for a while, only to part ways in a similar manner.

Here, I envisioned one of those periodic dimmings of the light, perhaps a tenth of a second of darkness. Some college geeks late on a Friday night, heading home from the Village.

They're surrounded by sudden silence, even as the train continues to lurch along, the air heavy with rust and hints of dust and a faint residue of piss. The windows show utter blackness, far beyond that deep charcoal that normally stands there, though normally slightly obscured by surface scratches and blurring. It's as if there weren't even space for the blackness to occupy now.

They soon notice the next car. The only other car, now. The car behind them isn't there anymore, and the one in front holds quantum twins, or nearly so. There are some minor differences, but that's them over there, just not quite exactly as they are here.

There's also no car beyond that one.

They can't open the doors, nor hear each other, but they can each write on their respective door's window.

They work out some interesting conjectures. The usual suspects are tossed out and kicked around, as well as a few more oddball ones.

After a few hours, the lights flash out again, only to come back with normality restored.

The train rumbles to a stop and I get off.

It was a fun adventure, but this is my station. I have places to go and things to do, but that unwritten and unsolved adventure will always ride with me.

**O ~~~ O**


End file.
